I have a confession to make. I’ve never visited Canada in my life, although my British husband adores the country, has visited almost every inch of it and would love to live there someday.

Me, I’m not so sure.

One “meets” a lot of people in traipsing about the Internet. Most, I would hope, are normal people with normal everyday hopes, aspirations and goals. Some are – well – not-so-normal, but life’s like that.

Yet, normal or not, it never ceases to amaze me how many ornery, mean, bitter and downright rude people whose paths one crosses in surfing the Internet. I mean, I try to be an open-minded person. I’m originally from a rural part of a Southern state, but I’ve lived and travelled around much of Western Europe, and there are few things or people I’ve seen or met that shock me.

Travelling or living abroad, one encounters all the insipid, nationalistic prejudices that prevail between one nation and another – many of which have fomented over hundreds of years. The animosity between the French and the English has its roots in the 1066 Norman conquest. The dislike of the Northern English for those who live in the Southeast has existed since time out of mind, a jealous borne from the provinciality and dirty industry wealth of the North juxtaposed with the easy, profligacy of the “soft South.” The Scots hate the English because an English Queen died, her heir was the Scots’ king; he headed South and never looked back. The Irish hate the English because of years of subjugation and brutal rule. The French distrust the Germans, but grudgingly work with them in order to play the big dog in the EU. The French consider Africa to begin “at the Pyrenees.” The Mediterranean countries consider Africa best served in Africa. You get the picture.

With the dislike, come the caricatures: the stiff, upper-lipped Englishman, the drunken Scot, the ueber-romantic Frenchman reeking of Paco Rabanne and garlic, the macho Spaniard or Italian, the goose-stepping German, the stupid American.

It’s easy to generalise, but some people generalise to such an extent or a degree that when actually confronted with people from other places, they let generalisations override actual initial impressions.

Generalisation, at the moment, is rife in the US. It’s always been about, but somehow the Internet shoves this more in your face. The attitude of the Northeastern coast and the entire West Coast to the rest of America (“flyover country” or “shit-kicking inbreds toting Bibles and guns”), Teabaggers thinking anyone remotely left of centre to be card-carrying socialists or communist, the piously moral assumption of some liberals to criticize the South and Southerners as a whole with impunity – it’s all there to find on the Internet.

This worries me, because I find myself falling prey to the very generalisation I abhor.

This generalisation is exemplified by a regular commentator on Huffington Post, a child-woman (or so her dynamic would indicate) known only as Amanda BC.

Amanda BC is Canadian. She lives on Vancouver Island, and – apparently – she has precious little to do all day long but read the radge served up as fact on that aggregate and comment in the ugliest and rudest fashion possible, directing most of her invective towards American commentators and never ceasing to let them know how stupid they are, how they’re responsible for every known ill extant in the world and how Canadians are as pure as the driven snow.

Tell that to the baby seals you club. (See, there I go generalising!)

She regularly tells other commentators directly how stupid they are, she drones on and on about how incredibly ignorant Americans are, she addresses other commentators directly as “fascist”. And, yet, such comments remain and are allowed to stand as per the “moderators.”

Her latest offerings come as a collective invective against the crisis in the Gulf.

As I said, I’ve never been to Canada and I’ve known only a few Canadians in my life, and those were people living and working in the US. Very nice people. But it would be so easy for me to generalise about the rest, based on this foul-mouthed little madam’s screeds. I guess the first thing I want to know is why there seems to be a propensity of Canadians commenting almost exclusively on American news and information sites (term used loosely) and about matters almost exclusively American? Yes, we share a continent, but I see precious few Mexicans weighing in about political agendae in the United States and there seems to be more cutting issues applicable to Mexicans than Canadians … but that’s – dare I say it? – a generalisation.

I live in the UK. I read some of the blogging comments on The Guardian’s website and also on the BBC. When an American strays inadvertantly into “British” territory to comment on all matters British, they are politely told where to go.

This worries me, because it’s making me hate without reason. It’s closing my mind and making me intolerant. Is she genuinely nasty? Does she have self-esteem issues? (How I’d love to ask her that, or any other Canadian commentator offering up such venom-laced observations). Maybe, even though she lives on Vancouver Island, she’s never visited the United States, or maybe she has and is jealous. Maybe she can’t get a green card. Or maybe she’s just a vicious, vindictive, little bitch who gets pleasure from reminding people of their own inadequacies in order to mask her own.

Anyway, she’s putting me off visiting Canada, and she’s putting me off Canadians. Let me just generalise and say, who the hell wants to visit a place where they club baby seals to death?

Arrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhh! You see … if the public exist on generalisations and stereotypes, how easy it is for the dumbed-down, mundane media to feed that addiction?

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I was ordered to get another MRI for my back and leg today. My Doctor’s office told me that they have to get pre-approval from Empire Blue Cross before I can go. They will call me, then I will have to schedule an appointment. Since I am leaving on vacation tomorrow night, I guess I will be waiting for weeks or months… like in Canada… unless the Death Panel gets me first, eh?

WLA great to see your moniker again but obviously sorry to hear about you ailing body parts. I hope everything turns out well for you.

Have fun on your vacation and maybe just maybe when you get back you’ll finally get the scan you need. Remember according to the GOP and teabaggers we have the best healthcare system in the world while you wait.

Take it from me, a drunken Scot who’s family originally settled in Canada before coming to the U.S., Vancouver is a BEAUTIFUL place. It’s also very hip. Very liberal, very diverse. Great dining. You can buy pot there “almost” legally. My wife and I had our honeymoon there.

From Vancouver Island to Whistler is truly one of the most gorgeous areas in North America in my opinion. The climate on the Island is typical drizzly pacific NW, no real snow, but coastal so no real hot summer either. The short drive to Whistler and you can ski or snowboard.

Don’t let one snooty know-it-all ruin your opinion of that area, let alone Canada as a whole. People in Canada in general are much more easygoing than Americans, and more polite. You should visit sometime.

Montreal, and Quebec City are also wonderful and feel almost European. And if you like the cities of Midwestern U.S. (Chicago, Detroit, Minn/St.P, etc.) then Toronto is the same kind of thing, but cleaner and better managed. 😉

Now, back to my drinking. (Then I am genetically obliged to have an argument that degrades into a fistfight with my family members then we all cry and hug and tell each other we love them.) And remember, if it’s not Scottish, it’s CRAP!

Thank you boomer. Some people don’t get it, they say that now is the time to be doing thing for myself. I ask why, I’ve done so many things in my life that many people never get the chance to do and I’ve had a ball doing it.

Simple things like ordering an 80 year old neighbour’s shopping, so that he doesn’t run the risk of falling or stumbling into traffic if he had to do it himself, is reward enough for me. I’ve known him for years, his wife was also German and we had a good relationship. I’m honoured to do it in her memory.

I need very little in life and I have what I need, so other people are more important to me than myself, no big deal.

OK, without getting into any specific posters “from the other site,” I think the general gist of this post is about Canadians and do all Canadians have a negative attitude about Americans.
I can tell you as someone who’s lived in both countries that Canadians on the whole are neurotically polite, and that the vast majority of them get along just fine with Americans individually (granted, there is usually a “gimme your tourist dollars” dynamic taking place.)
One thing Canadians HATE is when Americans come to Canada and make fun of Canada, saying “eh,” after every sentence, making fun of the fact that most Canadians live near the border, calling Canada America’s hat, etc. They have no patience for that. *Most* Americans know better, but not all.
I’ve run into a couple of Canadians who hate Americans, but for the most part, I’ve mostly heard Canadians wank about American leaders, especially Bush Jr. and Reagan. Most Canadians are able to separate the politics of the country from individual Americans.
The biggest preconception I have run into among Canadians toward Americans — and it’s a preconception that isn’t *that* far from the truth, frankly, is that Canadians are convinced that most, if not all, Americans are packing heat. It is one of the biggest cultural differences between the two countries. Canadians simply don’t have the obsession with firearms that Americans have, and they are mystified by the American obsession with guns, especially handguns.

Pepe, I know that we are talking about Canada and Canadians here, but most Europeans have exactly the same feelings about the American fascination with guns. Most of us just can’t get our heads around the fact that just about any Tom, Dick and Harry are able to buy a firearm. It is quite alien, even here in Japan, citizens are not allowed to buy or possess guns.

Boomer, this isn’t related to the gun issue, but to the kid safety issue. I just got home from running all afternoon and made a last stop at the shoe store for sandals. I glanced up as I got out of my car, and in a car nearby was a little kid — maybe 3 -4 years old — all by himself in a car with the windows closed. And it is HOT here!

I went in to grab my sandals (already knew what I wanted because I tried on my daughter’s and loved them) and kept an eye on the car the whole time. It seemed like it took forever to check out. No parent in sight. Went back to my car with my cell phone in hand and had just finished dialing the police when the mother came out of the shoe store glaring at me. (I’m sure that I was the villain and she was the victim in that scenario — in her mind.) I hung up, and she tore out of the parking lot.

Grrrrrrr. Wonder if she knows how little time it takes for a completely closed car to get hot in the direct sun.

Don’t be sorry boomer, I managed to get a few things done in relative peace and quiet.

It’s recycle trash day here and have been pondering about what would happen if I tied myself up in a 45 liter trash bag, would I be taken away with the flattened cardboard boxes, the newspapers and magazines, the empty bottles and jars or the washed out tins. What do you think?

I wouldn’t call it wisdom, it has a lot to do with my Taurus side. I’m a peace keeper, I live to make my family and friends feel comfortable. The home, family, friends, people I like and respect and of course the furry ones are what I live for. If they are happy and contented, then so am I, knowing that I’ve done my job well.

Remember, it helps if you view the glass as half full and not as half empty.

There are very good and very bad people everywhere. I tend to think of people in terms of a statistical bell curve. There are just going to be extremes in any culture. Sure the center of the bell curve varies in by culture, kinda, maybe, but there are still people one, two even six sigma out on either side no matter what the center is.

Also like Q will tell you with up to 10% of people having no social conscience, the sociopaths among us, that’s a hell of allot of assholes out there for sure.

My experiences with Canada and Candian people have been very good personally.

Me too, Q. Amanda is like no other Canadian I have ever come across, and I know a lot. In general, I find that Canadian folks have greater humility, are more soft-spoken, and have a greater equanimity about them than we folks below. I am guessing that their education system is not as conducive to the “Me-ism” so common in the U.S.

But yes I do find most of the folks I’ve had a pleasure to meet from Canada are very nice people.

Just based on my personal experiences the people I’ve clashed with the most in my multinational corporate career were Scots and Aussies. They were the most like Americans because they wanted to do it their way like we do.

I’ve only met a few people from New Zealand but one guy I use to deal with on a regular basis was one of the nicest guys I ever met. Oh and Flight of the Concords are hilariously funny.

My family name is extremely rare and the only people with our surname live in Ireland, the US and New Zealand of all places based on my Google searches. Actually one distant relative in New Zealand is a famous local fashion designer from what I can tell.

I might go so far as to “blame” the Scots in part for both American and Aussie national temperament, given both were shaped and influenced in part by Scots and Scots-Irish. But, this is more along the lines of How the Scots Invented the Modern World and is too simplistic.

But no, that Scots could be difficult, headstrong and stubborn does not surprise me in the least! 😆

Speaking of Scots, this is how I feel when I encounter a particularly pernicious troll:

It also depends where the Scot came from as well. The Scotch-Irish are much more friendly in my personal experience. People also change based on the culture they live in as well so even though folks are Scottish if they lived in Canada for generations I would expect them to be much different.

Yes, it seems that Aussies have the unique distinction of being very much like us and yet always willing to look down on us! I think they don’t realize that if there were 330 million Aussies intstead of 20 million they’d be causing just as much trouble as we are! 😉

I use to kid one Aussie Tech. Director at a mill in GA no less. I said how can you work in the paper industry while they have no trees in Australia that’s why you’re stuck here after all. It use to burn him up.

You forgot bbburl the Ru Paul lover from Toronto. He also named himself Rand Paul. He would point every one to Alex Jones bullshit and make called Obama supporters Nazi’s. Yet he himself idolized to a fault Paul enough to use his son’s moniker.

I busted his world when I revealed all the right wing social opinions Paul had and I saw him just go away. He was about the biggest woo woo I’d ever seen. From 911 was an inside job on he believed every conspiracy theory.

No BJ is not bbbburl. BJ has been around for a long time and has a personal vendetta with the long time posters like JohnCT/Volvo Birkenstock, Hume, Groucho and so on. Gets his kicks by being crude and trying unsuccessfully to slap down posters who are far more informed than he will ever be. That annoys him, so he hovers like a mosquito, whenever these posters are around. He’s another one who has been banned without mercy often, his comments scrubbed along with him. He’s back again in a few days, what does that tell you, he must love being humiliated.

Yup Toronto and he loves his government healthcare system. I think for many “Libertarians” it’s more about the ideal and conspiracies than anything. Most of the Libertarians I met are the least pragmatic people I know.

Heh,heh….. This is great. I love that there’s this overlap between HP and here. There are folks like her that everyone loathes, but of course we can’t go to town on them on HP! Normally, I’m not into gossiping but this is richly deserved on her part. Thanks for the article. I love our Canadian friends. So many great people on HP. I lived in Seattle for over a year, as well, and visited Canada every chance I had. I would gladly live there as an alternative to the US. I hope you folks continue to keep this great open attitude toward HP; it sure is a zoo sometimes but there’s a lot of good there too. See you there if you visit! :)Barb/msbadger

The badger surfaces! MsB, I’m probably being obnoxious but I still want you to look at more of my posts. All you have to do is go up to “Members Directory”, scroll down the author’s list, click on a name, and all posts show up as links. Read the one about animals sleeping, at least!
Paw bump!

Hi, WTS- You’re not being obnoxious at all. A bit of shameless self-promotion is quite fine- LOL! 😉 I am really so sorry- I did actually look at and read them. I’m a baaaad-ger for not letting you know. My son came over and I even showed him your artwork. I got distracted, and forgot. I meant to leave you the good feedback I had in my mind. Too bad you’re not a mind reader! I enjoyed them. I’ll check back here more often too. I love seeing so many familiar folks here now. See you on the HP or here, friend!

Ms B !!!!!!!! 😉
I just initiated a fan-a-thon at Huff hehehe !
Because it seems many people lost fans overnight & I’d like to see some people with fewer fans even up the tally --
LOL --
I too love the cross-over with here & Huff --

HP is such a bizarre place. I check in rarely, but weird things happen in between visits. I never had many fans, yet last week I gained about 10. Then this morning I was down 12!! Whahoppun?? I just made some relatively innocuous comments about the Repubs being critical of Obama over the oil spill but not having a plan themselves.

I can’t figure that place out.

And I really can’t figure out why I should care, yet somehow my feelings are hurt. 😀

Kes --
Don’t let it hurt your feelings -- it IS weird --
I have gained fans >> when I’m not there !! LOL --
I show up a day later & my count has gone up --
I just figure people are asking me to not show up ?? LOL
Kidding, but here’s what I’ve been feeling :
It all depends on the thread.
If we’re on a thread where most of our “friends” are, it makes sense that we won’t gain many new fans, because most of them have already fanned us --
I’ve been going to the “lesser threads”, because I often don’t enjoy the feeding frenzy that takes place on the main --
When I post on the slower threads, I pick up (not by intention) several fans, just because they’re lesser-known people who usually don’t frequent the main --
The more fans I pick up, the more ready I feel to put my “eye” on a new moniker, to start back at 1 --
I’m not comfortable with the illusion that some posters are more popular than others, it just isn’t so & usually has to do with the thread & the amount of time each poster spends & when ….
PS : Fanned !

Lise- love to have you there with us- keep coming back. I really enjoy your comments. The whole fan thing is truly absurd- I have over a thousand now!! and I’ve only been on HP for a year this month. I love it on one hand but the rational part of me says, “who cares, I don’t even know most of those people.” When it’s fun it’s really fun there, and as I’ve posted before, it’s my online home. People like you add to the experience- glad to be a fan! 😉

Barb -- You are truly the darling of the site IMO -- you deserve each & every fan --
For me, it’s just that I’m feistier than some people & I like it when the more timid people get attention --
I think if / when I reach 900-1000 I’ll start over --
But you ! you wear those like a crown ’cause you’re a princess IMO 😉

Hi to whoever’s here !
Of course, I HAVE to weigh in on this one 😉
I’m a French Canadian (ages 1-9, Quebec) (ages 10-23, Vancouver & the island) --
First, AmandaBC is an anomaly, as compared to most Canadians.
Thankfully, I rarely “come across” her on Huff -- probably our schedules are different --
Having said that, we (all) are a sum of our parts, ain’t we ?

Testimonial from a basically pretty cheerful & peace-loving (though spirited) Canadian :
When I post at Huff, it’s usually because I have to put my 2-cents’ worth, weigh in on a topic I feel strongly about --
This process can bring out aspects of ourselves the can surprise us, but I decided, (esp. since it’s merely blogging & not serious “friendships” being cultivated) to “let it all hang out” -- so at times, I unleash words (esp. with trolls, sorry but it’s just too hard to resist, damn delicious fun !) that feel righteous at the time, even though they may be indulgent, snarky, or judgmental.
If I’ve made an error in assessing someone, I ‘ll apologize, but generally, it feels good to let out the “overall” me, without caring about popularity or following the stream of thought --

I can’t speak “for” Amanda, except to say simply : that that’s about her -- it’s not about Canadians --
Yes, Canadians tend to have a raised eyebrow sentiment toward Americans -- it used to piss me off to hear the gross generalizations coming my from country folk -- there’s so much they’re missing about the fabulous attributes of many many Americans --
Canadians seem to feel that all (or most) Americans are grossly materialistic & money-loving, missing entirely the humanity & social conscience that I feel many Americans possess (well, ….da Libs 😀 )

Periodically, I’ll let loose on “one of our own” : Dems who (lately it seems) love to pound on Obama, assuming that he’s doing zero on the oil disaster, an assumption I don’t at all share & who, by extension, pound on fellow Dems who give the President the benefit of the doubt, on just what he IS doing to try to solve this unprecedented mess.
So, Canadian here, making no apologies for Amanda, who would prob. be just as odd if she were American, nor for myself, for letting all facets of my human-hood (and Canadianism) out on the internets

Any questions on the “Canadian thang”, feel free to ask -- or critique, or, hell : mock !
I can laugh at myself, at Canadians = I can take it

Living not far from the Windsor crossing, Lise, I have spent a fair amount of time in Canada…which has only served to inspire a certain amount of Canada-envy in me.

Really, you can almost feel the difference when you cross over the border. “Soooo…this is what sanity looks like…” I find myself saying.

One of the best things I noticed was the lack of health-care-related advertising. Which seemed to produce a lower level of anxiety amongst the population. Not only did they not fret constantly about whether or not they had irritable bowel syndrome or fibromyalgia — they knew that if they did develop anything, they could get it taken care of without going bankrupt.

Actually, you do bring up an interesting point that there are a lot of Canadians who post “at the other site.” At least 10 or 12 regulars are Canadians, and most of them are very good posters. There is one especially obnoxious right-wing Canadian troll, though. He is strange.

It was *extremely* funny one night when trolls were spouting inaccurate nonsense on some health care reform thread about wait times in Canada (there are *some* wait times in Canada, but the right-wingers really spout ridiculous nonsense about it), and all these Canadians started posting the funniest jokes about how long you have to wait in line for *everything.* This went on for a couple of hours, and it was one of the funniest nights ever on that site.

Pepe = there HAVE been some great times there, when that type of stream gets going -- if you were there when the :
It’s sooooo Tony & Tenille -- it’s sooooo Pet Rock --
Some of the vignettes there have had me LOL’ing, something we can all use a good doses of : daily IMHO --

I visited the provinces of Quebec and Ontario several times when I lived in Pennsylvania and Vermont and most of the people I met were friendly and eager to please the tourists from the US. If only to get some of the tourists to spend their money.

You’re absolutely right, DildenUSA -- our governments are as hypocritical as the best of them across this world. That Hydro dam in Quebec is not the only one being proposed; there’s another one in BC that threatens to flood a very fertile valley that is also rife with wildlife and a trail for annual migrations. But ….. there are also those who fight the good fight -- so we are also as good as the best of them out there!

The treatment of the the First Nations peoples was appallingly disgusting and no amount of reparations or apologies will make up for what was done to those communities … but very serious work is being done to heal the divide, to find and punish those responsible if they are still alive and for those principals involved (the government and the churches) to embark on a renewed path of love and respect. It’s not perfect but it’s a start. Kevin Annett is an anarchist of the first order who does nothing to heal and everything to divide.

It’s obvious that Kevin Annett is using his skills and knowledge in a self serving manner. I wasn’t aware that he was behind the hidden from history web site. Then I noticed that he has appeared on the Alex Jones Radio Show. If you don’t know who Alex Jones is, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones_(radio_host) he is basically a self serving scum bag like Keven Annett.

Indeed, Pepe! I lived in Cape Breton for a summer teaching there, and I loved it. I got to know people as people and colleagues, with the oddest moment spending the 4th of July with people who did not -- and found it rather funny since their forebears had sometimes been the Loyalists. It’s an easy place to be, kind and forgiving of foibles of Americans, and rife with the kind of political discussions one just does not have in the US. The acceptance of the Socialists as well as the Tories is markedly invigorating.

That said, the nastiest comment ever directed to me was from a Canadian who said the Salem witch trials were THE WORST persecution known to the human race. Huh? Since witch trials and witch burnings were occurring all over Europe about the same time (we hanged them -- markedly less awful, IMHO), and since the world had had this “little” event known as the Holocaust much more recently, I found that vitriol basically stupid and pointless at best, ahistorical and bigoted at worst.

But that was one, just like AmandaBC, and every society has some. If these are all the icky people we can find, then Canada is still doing well. I would also not be surprised if AmandaBC will turn out someday to be an American ex-pat who has not gotten over Nixon.

The US has much to answer for, but AmandaBC should REALLY talk with Richard Cardinal, leader of the “aboriginal people”, as the Canadians so oddly call indigenous persons, what HE thinks Canadian superiority is all about. Bet he would see slim difference. We ALL have much to answer for.

2 of the nastiest dregs of humankind I’ve ever met on the internet were from the UK -- so yes, is very easy to generalize Marion -- and the 3rd nastiest was from Alaska (no -- not Sarah) and delighted in stirring the pot to the point of having people in tears.

The best thing to do is to ignore them, do not engage them in any way -- they delight in playing mind games and, yes -- even Canadians can be mean and spiteful.

The nastiest piece of work I met on HP was an American living in Holland. He never missed an opportunity to tell Americans how stupid they were and how your country had caused so much devastation all over the world. He claimed to have fought in Vietnam and was angry with the government for not caring about the damaged soldiers when they returned home.

He’d write things about how great Holland was, how many Euros he could earn in a month and then go off using language like a drunken sailor out on the town. He had the most monikers of anyone while I was there, he kept being banned. When I first started there he was “PissedoffVet, later he was JoeTheBartender and at least 20 other names in between, plus a stint of at least 5 women’s names, Delores something or other. We called him “Snuffy.”

He would write in German to me, I would translate for the other posters, it made him mad. So many nutters and so little time.

Ah yes, Dutchman, he still comes around, and it’s real easy to spot him still. So much hate in a persons heart, that they keep coming back on a blog to trash their former country. Truly a damaged person, at best.

He would always reply to my comments because he knew I lived in Tokyo and that I was German. He preached about a powerful “cult-like” organization here, the “Soka Gakkai” said he was a member. This group is fraudulent and has a lot of power with some of the old fogies in government here, something akin to your RR I would say.

This piece of dung came back so many times, you could tell it was him from the first comment, yet great posters were banished because they had had the audacity to complain about the monitoring and the troll shite left up for the world to read at random.

Their silly badges system cannot heal the wounds and hypocrisy they have caused and dished out on a daily basis over the years.

The only time I go there, is when I open an email that tells me that a favourite blogger has just posted something new. I logged in last week because I was curious as to what had happened to the 2 badges they had bestowed on me. I didn’t reply to their email, so one had been removed, I laughed as I logged out.

Thanks Pepe, you have just jogged my faltering memory of HP. That was it, his first moniker when I got there was PissedOffVietVet. He started to use the “C” word in every comment. Someone would say, “Ready, steady,go” and we would all flag him at the same time, over and over again until he was gone. At that time HP was still fun, then the trolls caught on to mass flagging, and regulars like Feminazi were being banned left, right and center. That was the beginning of the end for me over there. Even all the nasty crap I had ever read there couldn’t compare to the indiscriminate banning of the old regulars. It was bizarre.

SnuffyFoulmouth however continued to reappear, made no sense at all. The best thing I ever got from HP was the great friends I made, they continue to this day and AdLib and KQ are two of them. However, be darned if I’ll ever thank HP, the last 6 months there were spent writing one liners, trying to fool the silly word filter they had installed and then upgraded every few days, it became ridiculous. I chose sanity over companionship, I think that I won that round.

I don’t have the patience to engage with people like Snuffy, Kalima -- I value my sanity too much!

When the forum at which I ran across my 3 examples finally closed -- one of the hangers on, who caused almost as much damage as the 3 front runners, started getting maudlin about how much he would miss everybody. I got very angry at that as I had spent 2+ years seeing the damage done to other posters with this groups maniacal behavior and for the first and only time in my life I started baiting him; it was so easy to become like them and I was horrified but I wanted one last chance to let at least one of them know just exactly what it felt like to be on the receiving end. I felt very unhappy once I had finished -- it was not a nice thing to do

Mightywoof, for most of us, that is for the sane ones, revenge is never really sweet. For the crazies, it’s their everything, it’s what they live for, that’s why they are there posting their nastiness every day. What a bloody useless way to spend your days and nights. Quite pathetic actually.